The Park-and-Ride Boondoggle

Angie Schmitt explains new research by Lisa Jacobson and Rachel Weinberger, who surveyed 37 American transit agencies about park-and-ride facilities.Their findings: "despite the expense of park-and-rides and the fact that many spaces go unused, most of the 32 agencies that manage parking are still planning to build more of it."

Schmitt goes onto summarize six of the big takeaways from the survey, including:

• "Most agencies don't charge for parking"
• "All agencies lose money on parking"

and the kicker:

• "Most agencies are expanding parking anyway"

According to the study, agencies build unnecessary parking mostly because of the availability of funding—which points to flawed policy somewhere along the line.